Anton Chigurh - The Classic Anti-hero

In this essay, I took a look at how the quiet yet complex villain Anton Chigurh in ‘No Country for Old Men’ disrupts the classic model of Western hero.

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INTRODUCTION

On May 19, 2007, the Coen brothers premiered No Country for Old Men at the 60th Cannes Film Festival. This Cormac McCarthy adaptation went on to garner four Oscars (Reagan, 2008), two Golden Globes (HFPA, 2012) and was highly praised by film critics and scholars. Gilmore (2009) regards this piece of cinema as a turning point in the Coens’ career, signifying their aesthetic and philosophical maturity by deviating from trademark irony to more serious, quiet direction. Apart from superb performance and stylized mise en scene, the film poses a subversive view on the notion of classical Western hero through the character of Anton Chigurh. Hence, this essay aims to analyse this character and ways in which he achieves it.      

The article first starts by defining a model of classical hero based on texts of Will Wright, Robert Warshow, Andre Bazin and the character Shane from Shane (1953). It continues by comparing the assassin to that paradigm to reveal more about his subversive nature before ending with conclusion on those discoveries.

DEFINING THE CLASSICAL HERO

These three articles discuss different yet mutually supportive realms of Western that establish understanding of the genre’s hero. Robert Warshow, in his influential essay ‘Movie Chronicle: The Westerner’, focused primarily on solidifying formalistic and internalistic qualities of a Westerner. He first dissected the hero’s mannerism ‘as a figure of repose’ (Warshow, 1954, 191), of self-containment and articulation. Take Shane for instance. He kept a collected demeanour throughout his course of actions like falling in love, entering a fight or receiving death threats. Warshow also explored the hero’s loneliness and melancholy, stating that ‘melancholy comes from the recognition that life is unavoidably serious...and his loneliness belonging to him intimately’ (Warshow, 1954, 191). Similarly, Shane entered the frames solo and left just as lonely, knowing he would never be able to settle down to homesteading lifestyle, a value clash best illustrated through his relationship with Marian. Finally, the paper dealt with the appreciation of guns, violence and honor. Unlike gangster depicting violence chaotically, Western emphasized on the purpose, instrument and importance of violence. The hero would not shy from a fight, but it has to be for good cause at the right time. Shane only resorted to his guns at the end, when villains had already overstepped boundaries, to regain peace for the town.        

In additions, Will Wright dives deeper into the hero’s relationship with other characters through four opposition pillars. The first pillar is inside/outside. Shane was a stranger to the Wyoming Territory ‘the contrast of wandering, unsettled life with domestic, established life’ (Wright, 1975, 50) but tried to fit in nonetheless. During his stay, he recognized the conflict between the homesteaders and Ryker’s gang, leading to the second opposition, good versus bad. This dichotomy can be interpreted as a clash between progress and exploitation; between pleasant and sinister. Shane, though a cowboy himself, believed in change brought about by his caring homesteader friends against the ruthless villains. Thirdly, one can recognize that the protagonist and villains are stronger than these villagers and that only Shane could put a stop to Ryker, hence the strong/weak opposition. The last paradox, wilderness against civilization separates the hero from both society and villains. Shane appeared amidst the scenic mountainous landscape and left the appeased town to continue his wild, lonesome journey.   

Finally, Bazin’s article acts as a sum-up for Warshow’s and Wright’s. The appearance, relations and morality of Westerner, combined with visceral aesthetics, according to Bazin (1971), created a sense of mythic quality and epicness for both him and the genre. The French critic, though labeled the film as ‘superwestern’, still likened Shane to a white knight on his holy grail. Moreover, it is not uncommon to compare Westerns with ancient Greek mythology. Kirsten Day (2016) famously juxtaposed George Stevens’ magnum opus with Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid to foreground its epic hallmark. To her, the significance of this film to American narratives resembled that of Greek myths to Western civilization. In conclusion, the classic Western hero is a lonely, divine figure of articulation and sombreness with much appreciation to violence, honor and possesses dynamic relationships, which was subverted by the Coen’s Anton Chigurh.

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COMPARISON TO ANTON CHIGURH

The anarchic fatalist...

Chigurh’s first subversion is the lack of respect to violence and righteousness to his killings. His shootings are a far cry from Shane’s. Instead of revolvers, the hitman’s weapon of choice is a cattle shocker shot at point blank to inflict more anguish to his victims because ‘to execute people in this way is to reduce them to the status of animals’ (Estes, 2013, 184). These homicides are swift, excessive and anarchic. Yet his attitude towards them is of dismissal, subtly portrayed when he dispassionately avoided Carson’s blood or checking his boots after Carla Jean’s murder. However, we are viewing these acts under standard morality, which does not apply to Anton. Maybe, to him, these killings do abide to his fatalist discipline (Nichols, 2008). The coin flips are his ways of demonstrating his philosophy while other killings simply help him get the job done. On the other hand, Anton is similar to Shane in that he is a ‘figure of repose’ and self-containment. He is meticulous and collected to bone chilling degree. Though both are likewise articulate, Shane radiates warmth while Chigurh gives off eerie feeling to others. Another subversion is his single-minded moral discipline. Shane was torn between domesticity or roaming and ultimately chose the latter in order to save the first. However, Chigurh was steadfast on his task and showed no remorse in his bloody course of actions.

The character oppositions are also distorted. Shane and Chigurh are outsiders as one leads a different lifestyle and the other is incomprehensible to the ordinary, ‘I don't want...go out and meet something I don't understand’ (Coens, 2007). Nevertheless, Shane still sought to fit in, distinctly through change of attire, siding with and helping townsfolk. In contrast, the killer retained his alienation through his interactions with others. The good/bad opposition turns into philosophical split between traditional ethic and fatalism, encapsulated in Chigurh’s question to Carson Wells ‘What good is a rule, if it got you here?’ (Coens, 2007). The query not only implies him killing Wells but also sheds light that doing so is not based on moral principle but out of personal necessity to rid of hindrance (McFarland, 2009). The same happened to Carla. He proposed a coin flip to decide her life. The coin flip, to him, is another way to assert his viewpoint and invulnerability, void of any human emotions (Gilmore, 2009). In McCarthy’s novel, Carla succumbed to the bet, lost and killed (Cooper, 2009). This version suggests his philosophy triumphs that of Carla, or standard ethics. But in the Coens’, she refused and got killed, insinuating that her moral heroism is for naught over Chigurh’s (Nichols, 2008). Indifferent to Shane, Chigurh is strong while society is weak. He wreaked havoc to citizens of West Texas and rendered Sheriff Bell useless ‘I feel overmatched’ (Coens, 2007). Gilmore (2009) and Cooper (2009) view Chigurh as supernatural force came to undo man’s rules while Naifeh (2013) thinks of him as incarnation of human greed and materialism as he was hired by drug traffickers to reclaim the money. Hence Chigurh belongs to both wilderness and civilization.

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Many empirical essays have pointed out Anton Chigurh and the film narrative resembles Greek mythologies and divinity. Anton is constantly referred to as dark, omniscient figure such as Angel of Death or Grim Reaper (Naifeh, 2013), which explains his cataclysmic black outfit, in stark contrast to Shane’s angelic white attire. The gunman’s killing of Wells was even equated with Athenians’ destruction upon the Melians after the Peloponnesian War in McFarland’s text (2009). Gilmore (2009) pointed another human quality inherent in Chigurh’s main prey, Llewelyn Moss, that is despised by Greek gods - hubris, ‘arrogant ignorance, thinking that you are better or more powerful than you really are’ (Gilmore, 2009, 61). Moss was a capable Vietnam War veteran but foolish in thinking that he could defeat such god-like figure like Chigurh. He then points out the fact that this movie parallels Oedipus tragedy since both tell the tale of ‘a good but flawed man...become enmeshed in events that will prove to be his ruin’ (Gilmore, 2009, 60). Llewelyn Moss stumbled upon a money stacked suitcase, went on a cat and mouse chase that ultimately ended with him and Carla Jean demise. Lastly, ‘No Country for Old Men plot resembles the “Pandora’s box”-type cautionary tale’ (Cooper, 2009, 44) in that a human comes across fortune but unknowingly summons the devil’s fury.

CONCLUSION

​In conclusion, Chigurh subverts the classical hero by mimicking his characteristics but purposely contrasting key defining features. He takes after Shane in quality of repose, prowess, outlier and invulnerability. At the same time, Chigurh goes against both him and the model with his own philosophy and code of conducts that contradicts ethical values and turns much respected violence into anarchic, excessive homicides. But most importantly, the core epic legends that evokes pride, love and belonging to American history and narratives (Bazin, 1971) have been replaced with tale of an unfathomable, mythical figure that wreaks havoc and elicits fear and anxiety. However, on a more positive note, this character, though cold-blooded and subversive, serves his purpose to the story and adds on another sophisticated layer to the rich and stylistic Western folklore.

REFERENCE

Bazin, A. (1971), “The Western, or the American Film Par Excellence”, in What is Cinema, trans. Hugh Gray, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2: 140-157.

Cooper, L. R. (2009). " He's a Psychopathic Killer, but So What?": Folklore and Morality in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Papers on Language and Literature, 45(1), 37.

Day, K. (2016), “George Stevens’ Shane”, in K. Day, Cowboy Classics: The Roots of the American Western in the Epic Tradition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 103-132

Estes, A. K. (2013). No country for old men. Spatial Practices, (16), 179-188. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/docview/1353085451?accountid=13552

Gilmore, R. (2009). No Country for Old Men: The Coens’ Tragic Western. In Conard M. (Ed.), The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers (pp. 55-78). University Press of Kentucky.

Hollywood Foreign Press Association. (2012, May 24). Nominations & Winners. Golden Globes. Retrieved fromhttps://archive.is/20120524113041/http://www.goldenglobes.org/nominations/year/2007/

McCarthy, T. (2007, May 24). Cannes’ Great Divide. Variety. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2007/film/columns/cannes-great-divide-1117965767/

McFarland, D. (2009). No Country for Old Men as Moral Philosophy. In Conard M. (Ed.), The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers (pp. 163-176). University Press of Kentucky. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/j.ctt2jcmzt.14

Nichols, M. P. (2008). Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: “No Country for Old Men” and “3:10 to Yuma.” Perspectives on Political Science, 37(4), 207–215. https://doi.org/10.3200/PPSC.37.4.207-216

Reagan, G. (2008, February 25). No Country Takes 4 at Oscars. New York Observer. Retrieved from https://observer.com/2008/02/emno-countryem-takes-4-at-oscars/

Warshow, R. (1954). “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner”, Partisan Review, 21 (2), 190-203.

Wright, W. (1975). “The Structure of the Western Film”, in W. Wright, Sixguns and Society: A

Structural Study of the Western, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 29- 123.